Oh the Lives I Have Lived
by Broken Antler in Winter
Summary: Dick Grayson reflects on his long life in DCU. Past, Present, and just a little bit of Future. "So, I was at Arkham. With Damian. Bats. A load of other Leaguers. Damian threw something at me, I tripped, and I broke my neck on a rock. A rock." Time to break the fourth wall into little, itty bitty pieces you'll never get back.


You wanna be a superhero? You want to have powers and fight crime, for _justice_? Alright, here's what it's like.

You're nothing at first, you don't think so. Anyways, you're a normal. And that's fine. I like being a civilian, but there are things that happen that make you unable to be that civilian again.

Yeah, I know I sound melodramatic, sheesh.

So, here's me, flipping around on the flying trapeze, and everything's _fine. _My life has _nothing _to do with the lives of any capes, and I'm just a normal person. The life doesn't feel right, though. You don't remember any of the little things, what you eat for breakfast, what your best memories are, if you even watched any movies, and what your favourite food is, except for the fact that apparently you're supposed to like this green cereal.

Crocky Crunch.

Yeah, I get it. It ups the laugh factor on my life. But, honestly, I prefer Aqua-Ohs. Always have, always will.

Anyways, then your parents die.

Apparently having living parents doesn't work with the whole superhero thing, and you have to die to be taken in by one of the world's greatest hardasses.

_Depending_ on the continuity.

I mean, Golden Age you have _all the camp. _It's fine and all, and it means you avoid any actual injury, most of the time. Bruce is great…nice _even. _At the end of the day it's always fun…though some things can be misconstrued as inappropriate. At the very least the villains are ridiculous and no one ever really seems to get hurt.

Except the parents. Always the parents.

Over time, there'll be other people who die too. Friends, comrades, and brothers, not just in arms.

Regardless of any hurt and any death that happened in my life, despite any powerful reaction on panel, I did not grieve. Because, as long as those who died were not parents, they'd always come back.

I'm starting to wonder when's the last time I've attended a funeral where the one buried actually _stayed dead. _It's more like a rest, apparently. You don't have to do stories, you just float around in limbo and wait for someone to resurrect you. Or, at least that's how Jason describes it when he's not trying to blow something up or kill someone.

I've died a few times, but never in my main 'verse, no matter how many times it's been shuffled around. I mean, the only time they actually try to kill me, I end up being resuscitated like the freaking Joker. Oh, yeah, there's also the time I was saved at the eleventh hour.

But we'll get to that later.

With All-Star, it was insane the whole run. First of all, Gotham was even crazier than usual. Second, _Bruce _was crazier than usual.

Not surprised that I ended up becoming the Joker, going insane, and getting killed by Goddamn Batman. _No! Lava! I'm meeelting. __  
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That stung.

There's also Titan's Tomorrow, where I die _offscreen _and no one gets to know. The whole time our Titans were duking it out with Super Evil Gone Crazy Adult Titans, I just sort of floated around in a void with Alfie, Bruce, and Selina, trying to figure out how we died.

Being chopped to pieces by Joker? Yeah, not fun either. Earth-3 was the _worst. _

At least for Infinite Crisis, I didn't _really _die, it got pushed off the table at the last minute, though that _kinda hurt being blasted in the chest. _Just so you know. Not complaining here.

Being nursed back to health by Babs, though….

Silver lining in a lot of dark clouds.

There's a whole _load _of deaths on different earths, but I won't go into that with you. Instead, I'll share the worst.

So, I was at Arkham. With Damian. Bats. A load of other Leaguers. Damian threw something at me, I tripped, and I broke my neck on a rock.

A rock.

A _rock. _

Yeah, that's faith in my talents as being one of the _best acrobats in the world. _Obviously being an acrobat does _not _require balance. I have to say, I complained to the writers, but did they hear? _No, _they were too caught up in giving Damian and Bruce manpain.

Seriously, though, lay off my family.

And no more _rocks. _

So, today, how do you feel? The New 52 was hard enough to slug through in the beginning. Jason gets to have more fun through it since no one's really allowed to connect to him during the rest of the time even if they want to, because the Writer Rules, but they took away _all your friends. _

They don't even bother to kill them off or anything. They just- poof! Non-existent. It goes along with Cass and Steph and more, even though you never really got the chance to get to know them.

The potential goes poof. The history, the little parts of your life and the memories that motivate you to keep going is all _poof. _

And when they kill off Dami, you try to calm yourself. It's gonna be alright, he'll be back within five years, they can't keep off of him for long. You need to stay strong and be for him when he gets back from the dead.

It's always traumatic the first time, though dying in main 'verse is a lot worse than one of those other earths or displaced timelines. It'll be fine.

The reality you live in, you _all _live in, it isn't exactly true to the bone reality, but it _works. _It's controlled by executives, editors, and writers who seem to always muck it up, but there's the happy times too.

Most of it is happy times, good memories.

Then you die.

Not really.

They're hinting for you to die in some blaze of glory kind of thing, and you think, alright. It'll mean a few years hiatus. The death will be painful, but you've handled pain. All of you and your friends have handled more pain than an average civilian gets in a lifetime. As in, gets through without dying or without staying dead, at the very least.

So, when Owlman comes along you endure.

You endure.

You endure.

Your life shatters and you pray to _hell _that they're doing another reboot. I mean, can't be worse, can it? Your _identity _is out. It's like Blockbuster all over again, the higher-ups trying to destroy your life.

(Wrong. It can _always _get worse.)

There's the physical torture and humiliation to contend with, then shady dealings with alternate universe versions of your mentor, and then being stuffed into a bomb. Of which you are the ticker.

Readers like that, or something?

When you feel like you're going to die, you get that feeling. It comes along no matter what layer of the multiverse you are in, when you are _dying, _you are _afraid. _

It's allowed, you know. I think we all have this fear of failure from the day we put on the mask, or maybe it's only bats…it's only bats. Dying is failing the people you love.

_Lex Luthor _comes along and cuts off your breathing. You don't get to experience what happens next because you're kind of _legally dead_, but it goes something like this.

You don't die.

Yes, with all the hype, you _don't die. _

It's relieving, until you're in the med bay and you finally wake up. Yeah…no. Stay dead. We're not telling _anyone _in the family. It's not really a family anymore, since the reboot anyways. Even if _everyone single one of us _remembers what it's like before, so we _know _we are a family. But if you're a partner, sidekick, son of Bruce, you get controlled by Bruce. Go off. Make puns. _  
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Be a _secret agent. _

So now you know. Be smart and don't go be a hero. It's worth it, but it gets torn away too much and you'd lose your parent figures anyways. Spiderman learned. There comes a point when you wonder when it all went wrong and everything you loved gets warped into a grittier reflection, where nothing's the same and it almost feels like you can't get back to the way things used to be. Twisted and turned and sometimes I feel like _I'm not myself. _It is worth it, for me, though.

Leave it to us, to dance around in tights or suits or capes or whatever is in fashion. It's not that bad, being a secret agent. I get to quip and jump around and meet new people. It's always been about saving people, and the life that we live with it is sometimes a casualty of our lifestyle. Sometimes a casualty of ignorant writers. As long as I get to fight this fight, I can endure. They can never take that away. _  
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Heroes never _really _die, especially in the comics.

But I miss the way things were, you know? It's never been _perfect_, but it worked.

Though, hey, I've endured. Just have endure a little bit more.

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(Though I've heard that DCAU's really nice this time of year…)

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THE END?

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><p><strong>posted on tumblr a while ago, so I just put it here. <strong>


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